The Blaze's NBL championship hopes remain alive after surviving a Perth Wildcats semi-final onslaught to claim a nail-biting 72-70 win on the Gold Coast on Wednesday night.
The series will now be settled with a third and final game in Perth on Saturday, with the winners to progress to the grand final.
The Queensland club surrendered a 20-5 first quarter lead and then several seven-point advantages as the six-time champions came at them again and again.
Controversially, Shawn Redhage was called for an offensive foul and his basket waived away with less than 30 seconds left, before Adam Gibson and Jason Cadee both made 1-of-2 from the charity stripe.
The game still hung in the balance until the final buzzer when a desperate Damian Martin heave went wide to hand the Blaze victory.
Hudson showed he had come to play with a monster dunk to open proceedings, while Mark Worthington stroked home an open three-pointer as Gold Coast set up its 15-point advantage.
That lead was slashed back to just three points at quarter-time as Perth capitalised on a spate of turnovers and fouls from the Blaze - including an unsportsmanlike one from Stephen Hoare and a technical foul called on Worthington.
Gold Coast streaked ahead again before Perth cut the margin to just one with little more than two minutes remaining in the second term.
But six straight points from Adris Deleon, the defensive pressure from the Gold Coast bigs and a buzzer-beating basket from Jason Cadee put the home team ahead 45-38 at half-time.
A huge block and a steal to Martin allowed the Wildcats to again close within one point in the third quarter through Matt Knight, but the desperate Blaze held them at arm's length with a 60-57 lead heading into the final quarter.
The Wildcats had two chances to take the lead with just over three minutes left on the clock, but Luke Nevill travelled on his way to the basket and then put a foot on the line with the ball in hand.
The Gold Coast's crowd had their hearts in their mouths in the dying seconds, but the Blaze did enough to win and now face a deciding semi-final in Perth on Saturday night.
AAP
Tags: nbl, basketball, sport, southport-4215, qld, australia, perth-6000, wa First posted April 04, 2012 23:18:59
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